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Friday, October 30, 2015

HOPE International Development Agency's 2015 Gifts of HOPE Catalogue is full of Christmas gifts you can give to make the world a better place.

You can help orphans in Ethiopia, transform young minds in the Philippines, support learning and good health in South Sudan, nurture children in Haiti and much more, including helping families become self-reliant and giving communities access to clean water.

Each gift in this year's Gifts of HOPE Catalogue can change lives. Make this Christmas a special time for you and the poor by giving gifts that will not fade, wear out, or go out of fashion.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

If you live in Edmonton, Victoria, Abbotsford, Kelowna, or Terrace, there's still time to get your tickets for a HOPE International Development Agency 2015 Film Premiere & Dinner event in your city.

A wonderful meal, live music, silent and live auctions, and the company of friends is what you can look forward to at our 40th Year Celebration HOPE International Development Agency Film Premiere & Dinner events.

The highlight of the evening is our latest film, “A Promise to Chan”, shot on location in rural Cambodia earlier this year. The deeply moving and highly uplifting film chronicles the journey Chan and her family took out of abject poverty and into self-reliance.

Please join us for what is sure to be a memorable evening for you and for the families in Cambodia you will transform though your giving.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Life in rural Bangladesh is challenging on a good day. On a bad day, it’s hard to bear.

It was definitely a bad day when Parul’s husband left her and their two sons. The emotional trauma was difficult, but the physical challenge of surviving would prove to be equally difficult.

Work is hard to find in Barisal, an impoverished rural area of Bangladesh where Parul and her sons live, and Parul struggled to earn enough income to provide for her family. She would need help if she and her sons were going to do more than just survive.

Fortunately, Parul found the help she needed in a savings group supported by friends of HOPE International Development Agency. She joined the group and began attending meetings, along with 19 other women. At each meeting, Parul would learn more about basic money management, and she began contributing a small amount of money toward a group fund that would help women like her start small businesses.

Having learned what she needed to learn in order to start a small business that would support her family, Parul borrowed $85 from the group fund and used the money to start a small grocery business using the produce she was growing. Parul also attended additional training sessions focused on helping her maximize production and increase profit.

Parul paid back her first loan and then took a second loan to further increase the production of produce for her grocery store. Her second investment in growing her small business paid off. Today, Parul’s monthly income has doubled. She now earns roughly $170 a month.

“I feel blessed to be part of the savings group,” says Parul. “The loans and my business have made it possible for me and my sons to live without fear and have given us hope for the future!”

Parul (shown below with some of her produce) plans to use her new income to send her two boys to school. She also intends to purchase a cow and start selling milk at her grocery store.

An AIDS Victim was authored by a long-time friend of HOPE and the poor, after a journey into the slums of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

"We saw the dying man. Then we visited the young dying mother, baby, and grandmother," recalls the author. "It was during the second visit that the doctor from England became so emotional and distraught that she left the house.
I soon followed and met with her by the car as she wept." Later that day, the author penned the poem.